


could you tell me what's real anymore?

by flooded_in_the_sky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: All-New Halloween Spooktacular!, Speculation, WandaVision spoilers, everybody needs a hug, hinting at monica’s potential powers?? could in fact be me, this is just me trying to cope with the latest episode because WHAT THE HELL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29388372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flooded_in_the_sky/pseuds/flooded_in_the_sky
Summary: The car’s gas started running low just before two in the morning when they were halfway there. Monica pulled into a dingy, half-lit gas station and shut the car off. For a moment, neither of them made a move to get out.“You get gas, I’ll get some food. I’m starving.” Monica didn’t leave time for Jimmy to argue and got all the way to the door of the gas station before remembering she didn’t have her wallet with her, and she hadn’t seen it in a long time.“Need cash?” Jimmy asked, not unkindly, and handed Monica a twenty dollar bill. “Get me something with chocolate.”“Anything to drink?”“Water’s fine.”Monica and Jimmy take matters into their own hands.!! MAJOR WandaVision episode six spoilers !!
Relationships: Maria Rambeau & Monica Rambeau, Monica Rambeau & Jimmy Woo, Scott Lang & Jimmy Woo
Comments: 21
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the title of the google doc i wrote this in is literally called "POST EP 6 BC WHAT THE HELL" enjoy

“Jimmy.” Monica’s voice was deadly calm. “I’m turning around. We’re going in.”

“Are you joking? We just lost our entire base of operations! You heard Darcy, that barrier did something to you!”

“That doesn’t—Oh, God, Darcy. She was still there, wasn’t she?” Monica slowed down. The wall of the Hex had stopped moving, there was no reason to keep speeding, except for getting as far away from there as possible.

“We have to go back to headquarters. There’s nothing we can do for any of them now.” Jimmy was quiet for a few minutes as they drove, either thinking a mile a minute or in shock, Monica couldn’t tell. And then he spoke. 

“I know this is a touchy subject, but is there any way you can contact Captain Marvel? Or another Avenger? We need as much help as we can get.”

Monica sighed. “Let’s get to headquarters first. You would know better than me the way the Avengers were decimated after the Blip and Thanos.”

The car’s gas started running low just before two in the morning when they were halfway there. Monica pulled into a dingy, half-lit gas station and shut the car off. For a moment, neither of them made a move to get out.

“You get gas, I’ll get some food. I’m starving.” Monica didn’t leave time for Jimmy to argue and got all the way to the door of the gas station before remembering she didn’t have her wallet with her, and she hadn’t seen it in a long time.

“Need cash?” Jimmy asked, not unkindly, and handed Monica a twenty dollar bill. “Get me something with chocolate.”

“Anything to drink?”

“Water’s fine.”

Monica went inside and grabbed a bottle of water, a pair of Powerades, because there was no way in hell either of them would get to sleep any time soon, a bag of chocolate covered pretzels for Jimmy, and a bag of sour candies for herself. Looking around for a moment, it felt like the night’s events had finally caught up to her, and she wanted nothing more than to collapse in a puddle on the dusty floor.

“Now is not the time,” she mumbled to herself, and straightened slightly. Monica turned back to the aisles of food and looked around for anything more filling than candy. She settled on a few bags of crackers and made her way to the cash register, dumping her haul on the counter. If the cashier was fazed by her or the military vehicle outside, he didn’t show it. Before going back outside, she stopped in the bathroom and noticed the hand dryer had wires dangling from underneath it. They crackled as Monica crouched down and looked, careful not to touch them. 

“Definitely live,” she said to herself, as if _that_ was the worst thing she’d seen all night. She left with her bag of goods in tow and tried not to think about the red wall following them into the night, what had become of Hayward and his team, of Darcy. God, _Darcy._ They never should have left her in there, no matter what she could have found. And now it was probably too late. They had no support, no way back inside to get to her or any of the others. 

“I’m gonna run in and use the bathroom, but the car’s all set,” Jimmy said when he saw her come out. “What’d you get?”

“Enough to get us back to S.W.O.R.D.,” Monica said, and pulled a crumbled pair of bills and coins out of her pocket. “Here’s your change.”

“Ah, thanks.” Jimmy gingerly took the money and stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll drive the rest of the way.”

“No, I got it.”

“Monica. You’re exhausted. Let me drive.” Jimmy looked at her with a mix of concern and warning, as if he knew she wouldn’t give in unless she was told.

“Fine.”

He seemed satisfied with that as he turned to go inside the gas station, and Monica opened the passenger door and settled herself in the seat. Their S.W.O.R.D. ponchos were bunched up on the floor in front of her, and she pushed them aside to set the bag down between her feet. The Powerade was still cold, and she took a drink and leaned back. She thought about those blood test results Darcy had found, and how they brought her back to sitting in an off-white hospital room holding her mother’s hand as tight as she could, trying not to cry because there would be time for that later and now was the time to do everything she could to keep Maria with her. _Breast cancer, stage II, almost stage III,_ Dr. Harley had said. She looked apologetic, as if it had been her fault. Whose fault could it have been? 

Jimmy opened the door, and Monica jumped. 

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

“Oh, no, I’m too wired to sleep right now. Just thinking.”

He shut the door and started the car, tapping at the GPS built into the main console. “Two hours to go, Captain.”

“You can call me Monica, you know.”

As the sun rose on her right, S.W.O.R.D. looked like business as usual from the outside, and Monica knew it wasn’t a good sign. She flashed her badge, new and improved because in all the chaos they’d had time to get her one, and the security guard waved them inside. 

“Do you think they know?” Jimmy asked.

“I don’t think so. But how could they not notice an entire response base gone? Turn right up here,” Monica said. “We have to get to Hayward’s office. He might have sent data there, and if we want to get in touch with the Avengers, that has to be where we can do it.”

Jimmy turned, and kept going until he reached another security guard.

“You’re up early, Director,” the man said, and Monica was slightly taken aback. _Director?_

“Duty calls,” she said, hoping her smile didn’t look too much like a grimace as she showed her badge.

“Have a good rest of your day.” The guard opened the gate and let them inside.

“You heard that too, right?” Monica asked as Jimmy pulled into a parking space.

“He called you ‘Director’? Why?”

“I don’t know.” Monica unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car. “I genuinely don’t know.”

“Huh.” Jimmy followed her outside and into the lobby. “I hope you know where you’re going, Monica.”

“I was raised here, Jimmy, I know this place like the back of my hand,” Monica replied as she passed the front desk and unlocked the door to the personnel offices. As they made their way to Hayward’s office, the lack of alarm made her more and more nervous. 

“I don’t think this is Hayward’s office.” Jimmy pointed to the plaque outside the door that read, _Monica Rambeau, Director_. 

“What the hell is going on?” Monica unlocked the door, and the room looked different than it had the last time she was here. The furniture was the same, but there were pictures of her mother and Carol, old friends, and some of the old recruits from past programs on the walls. There was a computer with multiple monitors at a desk pushed against the wall with stats on other S.W.O.R.D. bases pulled up. In front of it was a swivel chair and another desk covered in old S.H.I.E.L.D. files. 

“This is _not_ Hayward’s office,” Jimmy said, stepping inside. “Are you sure this is the right room?”

“I’m positive.” Monica paused. “Wait. Do you remember when I first showed up and you went over the missing persons case with me?”

“Yeah, why?”

“That man’s relatives said he never existed. The cops insisted Westview wasn’t real. Wanda made them forget.”

“You think she made S.W.O.R.D. forget about Hayward?”

“If the Hex covers the entire base now, we might be the only ones that remember the entire mission at all.” 

“She can’t do that. Can she? I mean, change this whole room and make everybody forget that a completely different person was in charge?”

“I don’t know anymore. If she can keep Westview and then some under her control, Wanda can do whatever she wants.” Monica slowly sat down at the desk with piles of manila folders. “What is all this out for?” She opened the top one and found the original S.H.I.E.L.D. file about Carol’s crash in 1989 and wished she hadn’t. Carol and Maria had never let her look at it, and now she knew why. The crash site was terrible to see, even worse knowing Carol had survived before getting kidnapped. She closed it and leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. 

“What are we supposed to do?” Jimmy asked, starting to pick up one of the files. 

“Don’t touch those. I’ll handle them. For now, I think we need to try to get in contact with whatever’s left of the Avengers. You know how to do that?”

Jimmy sighed. “Unfortunately, I think I do.”

“You’re calling Ant-Man?” Monica asked as the line rang. She and Jimmy were perched on the couch at the front of the office, and she was seriously considering taking a nap there when given the chance. 

“This is my contact!”

“Alright, alright, relax.” She yawned as she waited for the call to go to voicemail, or for somebody to pick up. “Where is he?”

“San Francisco.”

“That’s not convenient.”

“Nothing about this is convenient,” Jimmy said as the call was picked up. “Hello?”

“Who is this, and why is your contact in my dad’s phone ‘FBI Jimmy’?”

“Hi, Cassie. It’s Jimmy Woo, remember? FBI agent assigned to your dad’s house arrest case?”

“Oh, you.”

“Yeah, me. Is your dad awake?”

“Oh, I don’t know, he’s a grown man with a day job and it’s two in the morning. What do you think?” After that, there were muted shuffling noises and distant yells coming from the other end of the phone, and then a different voice came through. 

“Jimmy, did you finally master the close-up magic? I’m kidding, I saw the video you sent last week. Pretty good. What’s up?”

“Oh, good lord,” Monica mumbled, and slid down in her seat a bit.

“Is there somebody else with you?” Scott asked. 

“That’s why we’re calling. I’m with Cap—Director Monica Rambeau of S.W.O.R.D. and we need your help.”

“Ooh, S.W.O.R.D., sounds fancy. What’d you get yourself into?”

“Do you remember Wanda Maximoff, from Berlin?” Jimmy asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Yeah, yeah, she was the one with the cool scary magic. I liked her.”

“Well, she’s taken a town in New Jersey hostage in order to live out her suburban dreams.”

“Come again?”

“Scott, we need you to help us get in touch with whoever’s left of the Avengers,” Monica cut in. “We can explain the situation to you later, but right now we need to know if you can help us. This is an emergency.”

“Yeah, sure, I should be able to get into the compound. Of course, I would need to be in New York to do that.”

“It just so happens that I’m a licensed pilot, and S.W.O.R.D. has all kinds of high-tech aircraft that could be at your doorstep in a few hours.”

“So I’m gonna get to ride in a weird plane, got it. When will you get here?”

“We haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours, Scott. I’ll call you when we’re on our way,” Jimmy said. 

“One catch: I’m on Cassie duty for the weekend, so she’ll have to come with.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I never joke about my kid, Jimmy.”

“Scott, this is a dangerous situation. You might not want to bring her with,” Monica said, thinking of the time Maria almost didn’t help Carol after she got back and the stories she told afterwards.

“She’s a teenager, she can handle herself. Plus, Hank’s been helping her make her own suit. It should be done by now, actually.”

“Fine, Cassie can come.” There was a muffled whoop of excitement on the other end of the phone, and Monica snorted. 

“Then I’ll see you when I see you! Bye, Jimmy!” The line went dead, and Monica sighed. 

“If I wasn’t tired before, I am now. I call the couch.”

“What? Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“There’s probably a spare cot around here, relax. If I know my mom, she had supplies stored in here to last a month, and if I’m acting director, I probably didn’t move it.” Monica opened a closet door to reveal a folded up cot on wheels and a stack of blankets half as tall as she was. She pulled a thick fluffy one off the top and turned back to Jimmy and the couch. 

“Go nuts.” 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Monica woke up a few hours later, around noon, and stretched before sitting up. Jimmy was still sound asleep on the cot, and she made sure to be quiet as she went to the desk with the computer screens. 

“If I were an inter-galactic communications system, where would I be?” Monica asked herself as she clicked through the data on the other bases. There was one in Wakanda, one in Antarctica, one in orbit separate from the ISS, and one at the edge of the solar system that she didn’t remember. “They were busy, huh. I can’t imagine how long that took.” She searched for a few minutes for any sign of a contact function, but no luck. Hopefully the Avengers had something they could use, because as much as she didn’t want to admit it, Monica was going to have to finally call Carol herself. 

Jimmy stirred on her left, and she closed out of the S.W.O.R.D. base data. “Good morning.”

“It’s probably closer to afternoon, right?”

Monica shrugged. “Time is a construct.”

Jimmy shook his head. “How humans measure time is a construct, but the passing of time itself is not a construct.”

“Eh. We’re so hardwired to measure the passing of time that time itself has become part of that construct.”

“I’m too tired for this. Is there coffee?”

“There’s a Keurig right here. I’ll get something going.”

“Then we hit the road. Er, sky.”

“Sounds like a plan. What do you like?”

“What do you have?”

“French Vanilla and hazelnut.”

“Hm. Hazelnut.”

“Excellent choice.” Monica took the water container off of the machine and went to the bathroom to fill it up. The stalls were empty, and the only noises were the water running in the sink and the fizzing of the lights overheard. She looked up at the bulbs. They hadn’t always been that loud. Had they?

Monica shook her head and kept sticking the container underneath the automatic faucet until it was full enough, and then headed back to her office. There were a handful of agents in the hallways, and none of them stopped to question what she was doing or if she was _really_ the director. It was for the best, because there were too many questions and she didn’t have the answers for most of them. 

She slipped the container into place and set up the rest of the machine. In a few minutes, the room smelled almost comforting, and Monica filled up a pair of to-go mugs. She peaked back into the closet the cot and blankets had come from in hopes of finding some actual food for breakfast, and was rewarded with boxes of instant oatmeal that hadn’t expired yet, the first stroke of luck she’d had in a long time. She took them to the break room down the hall because for some reason, the S.W.O.R.D. director version of her got a coffee maker, but didn’t think far ahead enough to get a microwave. Ten minutes and a minor explosion later, Monica had something resembling a breakfast. It was much less than she and Jimmy would actually need after the past two days, but it was better than nothing. 

“Eat up,” she said upon returning and setting the disposable bowls down on the corner of the front desk that wasn’t covered in files. 

“What are we flying out of here?” Jimmy asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

“That is an excellent question.” Monica thought while she ate. Hayward had walked her through the hangar, but there was no telling if anything had changed since the last time she’d seen it. “There’s a few smaller planes that should be good, it’s just a matter of what’s available.”

“I’ll call Scott once we’re in the air, then.”

“Okay, explain how you know each other to me, because I don’t think I ever got the full story of what happened after Berlin.”

“He took a house arrest deal instead of staying in the Raft-”

“That was a legitimate violation of human rights, I don’t know how that made it into the Accords,” Monica cut in. 

“No, you’re right, but I was his parole officer, and I was under orders to arrest Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne, they helped him out. Hank was the one who originally made the Ant-Man suit, you know? Anyway, he _definitely_ violated his parole, but there was no way for me to prove it. He disappeared during the Blip, but it wasn’t because of Thanos, it was some time-travel reality-bending experiment, and for him, it was a few hours gone by instead of years. I kept in touch with his family after he disappeared and he called me a few weeks ago after the fight in New York.”

“And you’re friends after all that?”

“Sort of.”

“Ever been in a passenger plane, Jimmy?” Monica asked over the din echoing in the hangar. 

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, the past few days are full of firsts. S.W.O.R.D. planes are a little more high-tech than your average passenger plane, so it won’t be the most traditional experience.” They kept walking until Monica stopped at a plane at the end of the lineup. It was shorter than the rest of them, but had more than enough room for the four potential passengers. “This one goes faster than a commercial jet, which is ideal for today. We should get to San Francisco and up to the compound in about six hours, but it’ll feel a lot longer with all the time changes.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I am not.”

“Damn. This is safe, right?”

“All these planes are safe. I wouldn’t take you or Scott in here if it wasn’t, forget his kid.”

“Right, right.” Jimmy didn’t look convinced as they boarded. “You don’t need a copilot, do you?”

“If you’re asking if there’s anything you have to do, the answer is no.”

“Oh, thank God.” 

Monica snorted as she sat down in the pilot’s seat and grinned. She’d missed this, the feeling of the controls in her hands, the excitement building in preparation for takeoff. She pulled the headset on that connected her to the flight tower. 

“We’re all set down here,” she said, and looked over to Jimmy, who looked less nervous now. “You good?”

“Ready, Monica.” He gave a thumbs-up in reply, and Monica let out a little laugh.

“You’re clear for takeoff, Director. Have a safe flight,” said the officer in the flight tower.

“Thank you.” With that, Monica flipped a few switches and they were in the air. 

“So what do you do when you’re up here?” Jimmy asked. 

“Not much.”

“How long is it gonna take us to get there?”

“About three hours, but by the time we get there, it’ll be the same time there that it is here right now, so it won’t make a difference.”

“Huh. I guess time is a construct.”

“Where the hell am I supposed to land this thing?” Monica asked. 

“I don’t know, the pier? This city isn’t made of landing pads!” Jimmy replied. 

“Call Scott, tell him we’re close.” After a beat, Monica added, “Ask him for parking recommendations.”

Jimmy didn’t argue, and while he tried to talk to Scott, Monica kept her eyes peeled for any decent space she could use to land. Admittedly, this was the part of the plan that was the least thought-out. 

“Scott said there’s a road closed near his house that’s pretty clear,” Jimmy said. 

“Let’s give it a shot. It’s our only option.” Monica started looking around for a stretch of road closed near the pinging destination on the monitor to her right. “Here we go.” 

The plane hit the ground harder than either of them would have liked and screeched to a dramatic halt in front of the ‘Road Closed’ signs at an intersection, gathering an audience in seconds. 

“I’ll get Scott and Cassie, you stay here with the plane,” Jimmy said, unbuckling. 

“Fine by me.” Monica opened up the hatch to let him out, and sighed. The California sun shone through the windshield into her eyes, and she finally had a minute of quiet to think. Her mind jumped to Darcy first. Jimmy and Monica should have made her come with. Nothing on Hayward’s personal computer could be more valuable than her, and now they had no way of knowing where she was or if she was okay. Monica blinked away thoughts of the red wall bearing down on them in the S.W.O.R.D. car as she sped for their lives. She only hoped Wanda would have some mercy on the S.W.O.R.D. response team, if she knew who they were at all. Then came the problem of getting them out, and Monica could only think of one person strong enough to make a dent in the Hex, forget break it completely, and she was the last person Monica wanted to talk to. But that’s why they were going to the compound, that was why they needed Scott, because, surprisingly, S.W.O.R.D. didn’t have a direct line to Carol Danvers. 

Jimmy had smartly left his phone behind, and it pinged in his seat with a text saying that he, Scott, and Cassie were at the hatch. Monica flipped the switch to open it and watched it lower. A white guy with dark hair and a strangely large duffel bag and a girl with shoulder-length brown hair came in first, with Jimmy bringing up the rear. 

“I’m assuming you’re Scott?” Monica asked.   
“Yes, ma’am.”

“What’s in the bag?”

“Oh, right. Ant-Man suits. One for me, one for Cassie.”

“Right. Everybody strap in. We don’t know what’s going on in the Hex, which means we have to move.”

“The what?” Cassie asked. 

“Long story. We’ll explain once we’re in the air,” Jimmy said as Monica closed the hatch and started the plane’s engines. In no time, they were high above the confused people on San Francisco’s streets and headed for what remained of the Avengers. 

“So, what are we getting into?” Scott asked once the noise in the cabin had gone down. 

“You want to start, or should I?” Monica asked.

“Well, you were the one who went inside.”

“Inside where?”

“Okay, so you know Wanda. She broke into S.W.O.R.D.’s headquarters and stole Vision’s body, and created some kind of bubble around an entire town in New Jersey. You can’t go in or out. But I did.”

“What was it like?” Cassie asked, eyes wide. Of course she’d heard of Wanda before, she was the first to get demonized when a fight went wrong around her. 

“It was pretty bad. The only reason I got out was because she threw me out. Literally.”

“It started because somebody filed a missing persons report, but the really weird part was that nobody knew the missing person. They all said he didn’t exist,” Jimmy added. 

“Holy shit. That can’t be real,” Scott said, on the edge of his seat. 

“It definitely is. And to top it all off, what happens inside progresses through different eras of sitcoms. The first of what we saw from the inside of the Hex, the bubble, looked like it was from the fifties. The parts I was in were from the sixties and seventies.”

“Did she do the nineties? _Friends_?” Cassie asked.

“Not _Friends_. It’s always some wholesome family-style sitcom,” Jimmy said. 

“Her loss,” Cassie said, and leaned back in her seat. 

“So what happened that you needed to ask _me_ for help?” Scott asked. “I’m the last person who would know anything about this stuff.”

“S.W.O.R.D. had a small base of operations set up outside the Hex’s barrier after Monica got pulled inside. Last night, Wanda expanded the perimeter, and we were the only ones that made it out,” Jimmy replied. 

“Wait, what happened to the rest of them? They’re inside this Hex thing?”

“They’re under Wanda’s control now.”

Monica was glad Jimmy had taken charge of the storytelling for once. It was hard to fly and talk at the same time, harder to do it when you were trying to talk around a lump of tears in your throat. She knew that there was no time for overthinking about Darcy or Hayward, as much as he didn’t deserve it, and that her energy was better spent getting them to the compound and contacting Carol. That didn’t mean she could push away the worry and guilt she would have to face when they were out and safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted this to be longer, but i'm super tired today for some reason. i forgot until this morning that the avengers compound definitely didn't survive endgame, but i don't remember most of endgame and i refuse to watch it again, so we're rolling with this. once again, very unbeta'd. thank you for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as previously stated i refuse to watch endgame again, so some of this gets a bit dodgy, just ignore it. enjoy :)

“You’re kidding me, right?”

The Avengers compound was completely surrounded by construction vehicles and scaffolding, and there was a fenced perimeter around the building.

“I thought they would be done by now,” Scott said, peeking out the window from his seat. 

“You knew this was going on?” Jimmy asked, turning around. 

“A little? I mean, it looks a lot better than it did a month ago.”

Monica sighed deeply as she landed the plane outside the fenced-in area. 

“Okay. There’s still a chance the communications equipment is intact, right?” she asked, mostly to herself, as she unbuckled her seat belt and opened the hatch. “Everybody, let’s move. They might still let us inside. Let’s start there.”

Two men were waiting a safe distance from the plane, one in a hard hat and the other in a suit.

“Hi there,” the suited man said. “Mind telling us what’s going on?”

“Monica Rambeau, S.W.O.R.D.” Monica pulled her badge from her pocket. “My friends here are Jimmy Woo, F.B.I., and Scott and Cassie Lang.”

“And you’re here because?”

“We were under the impression that this facility had access to inter-galactic communications equipment, and we need to use it,” Jimmy said. The man in the hard hat shook his head.

“Well, I’ll tell you the same thing I told the two guys who were here when we showed up: Nobody’s allowed in,” Suit Guy said, and Monica wasn’t sure if she was picturing the smugness on his face or not. 

“Under whose orders?” Monica asked. 

“Department of Defense,” Hard Hat replied, and Monica was ready to throw something at one of them. There was no way she’d be able to talk to Carol in time if she had to go through them.

“You said you had to tell two other guys to leave? Who were they?” Scott asked.

“What’s it matter to you?” Suit Guy asked. 

“Just curious. Did one of them happen to have a metal arm?”

“Alright, come on.” Monica beckoned to the others and started walking back to the plane.

“What are we gonna do now? This was our best shot,” Jimmy asked as they walked away.

“I don’t know.”

“I think I might have an idea,” Scott said. 

Monica was beginning to regret not bringing more food along. Scott had been nice enough to pack a few snacks, but they had no way to get to the nearest town other than walking, which, considering the fact that it was about ten miles away, didn’t seem all that pleasant to any of them. Not to mention, she wanted a little dinner to go with the show playing out in front of her. 

“I don’t even think it would be that hard, seeing as it’s an active construction site. I won’t have anything to go off of in advance, unless this plane can somehow get access to the blueprints of this place pre-Thanos.”

“It’s a government mandated project!”

“Government, schmovernment.”

Jimmy pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Let me get this straight: you want us to _break into_ the Avengers’ compound after dark. You see nothing wrong with this idea,” he said slowly.

Scott shrugged. “I mean, is it illegal? Yeah. But it seems like it’s our only option.”

“I want to do some crime,” Cassie chimed in next to Scott, and Jimmy groaned. 

“Monica, a little backup here, _please._ ”

“Well, Scott’s right. We don’t have another choice, and I can’t leave Darcy or any of the others in there any longer than I need to. I need to see if communications equipment is intact, and if it is, I have to try to talk to Carol.”

“What if it’s not?”

“Then I get the hell out of there.”

“What if you can’t get ahold of her?”

“Then I get the hell out of there! I’ve already risked my own neck enough, what’s a little more?”

“Fine,” Jimmy sighed in defeat. “Fine, let’s break into this place.”

Scott rubbed his hands together in exaggerated glee. “I thought you’d never say yes.”

“Don’t make him regret this. I’ll get you the blueprints.” Monica opened the computer in the little table they were sitting around. “They aren’t available to the public as far as I know, but S.W.O.R.D. should have a copy somewhere.”

“Are we allowed to see this?” Cassie asked.

“My boss would say no, but he’s probably living in some twisted version of the early two-thousands right about now, so who’s to say?” Monica kept scrolling through files, eventually landing on one filled with documents about the Avengers. Everything from reports from New York in 2012 to outdated files on potential candidates flew by on the tabletop screen until she landed on a folder full of blueprints. “Perfect.”

“Don’t we have to look through all the documents in here to figure out which one is actually what we’re looking for?” Jimmy asked. 

“Well, yes.”

“And how many files are in here?”

“About a hundred,” Scott said helpfully.

Night fell, and the construction crew and government guards slowly trickled away, eyeing the plane with suspicion.

“They know we’re up to something,” Jimmy said worriedly. 

“They don’t know for sure, and what they don’t know can’t hurt them,” Monica replied. “Besides, you can just knock ‘em out if they try anything.”

“I’d rather not do that again, I don’t want to lose my job.”

“Eh, these guys don’t look that tough. Besides, they won’t notice a thing when I go ahead of you.” Scott pulled his helmet on. “Can you hear me alright?”

“I still don’t get why I can’t come with you,” Cassie complained.

“I already told you, peanut, we’re going in mostly blind, more than I would like. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“We’ll need somebody to watch the plane. I get it, wanting to go out there. You’ll get your chance, trust me,” Monica said, and she hoped Cassie understood. 

“I guess watching the plane is something. Can I watch movies on this computer?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Nice.”

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Jimmy said as Monica lowered the hatch. 

“You’re told me this three times in the past two hours, I know.”

“Come on, Jimmy, have a little faith in me,” Scott said, and Monica could practically hear the grin in his voice.

“That’s nearly impossible,” Jimmy replied seriously, and Monica held her amusement back. 

“You two argue like an old married couple, honestly.”

“It’s part of my charm,” Scott replied, and they stopped a good distance away from the fence. “Alright. I’m gonna go from here, and I’ll tell you what I see when I get there.” He pressed a button on his suit and disappeared in a blink. 

“Don’t tell me you’re surprised by _that_ at this point,” Jimmy said, and Monica shook her head. In her earpiece, she heard muffled shouts and wind as Scott got closer to the fence. 

“Scott, your earpiece is still on,” she said.

“Oh, sorry,” came his reply, and then there was silence. 

“So if you can get Carol to come down, what then?” Jimmy asked.

“If anybody can break that barrier up or take Wanda down, it’s Carol. We’d have to draw Wanda out somehow because I don’t want to test Carol’s ability to resist mind control.”

“That’s it? And then it’s over?”

“That’s what I’m hoping. But there’s probably going to be some other hurdle to jump, and Carol will have to leave because she always seems to have more time for beings across the galaxy than her own family,” Monica snapped, and she sighed. “I’m sorry, you didn’t need to hear that.”

“It’s okay. Family can be tough.”

“No kidding.” Monica paused, and decided to push on. She needed the release. “Until I was five, Carol was around more than my own dad. She made my mom happy, and that made me happy. And then she disappeared, and we all thought she was dead.”

“I read the case file. Pretty grizzly.”

“Imagine explaining that to a kid who isn’t even in school yet.”

“But she came back after that, right?”

“Sometimes. She was supposed to come back to be with my mom after her surgery. I don’t know if that ever happened.”

“Monica, I-“ Jimmy started, and he was cut off by Scott’s voice in their ears.

“Guys, this place is empty. You’re all set to come in.”

“Thanks, Scott,” Monica replied. “Let’s get moving.”

“Monica.” Jimmy didn’t move.

“What?”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with all of that. That’s too much for a kid to go through.”

“It’s not your fault. Come on.”

Being inside the compound’s main building was eerie. Monica knew enough about the Avengers’ efforts to bring back the Blipped, but seeing it up close was entirely different from seeing photos taken days after the fight had ended. Scraps of steel on the floor were melted or shattered, looking more like glass than metal. 

“Alright, I’m gonna say it. I kind of hate this place,” Jimmy said quietly.

“It was actually a pretty nice building before. Lots of windows and stuff,” Scott replied. “Now, though, I have to agree. This place sucks.”

“Let’s see the map again,” Monica said, and Jimmy passed her his phone. “Okay, I think we’re on the right track. It’s towards this back right corner.”

They stepped through half-built walls and neat piles of rubble in the different rooms until they reached the room on the map that was labelled ‘Communications.’

“There’s nothing here,” Jimmy said.

“No, no, no, there has to be _something_. There can’t be nothing here, this was our only hope.”

“Monica, come on, let’s go. Maybe somebody at S.W.O.R.D. knows something.”

“No, there has to be something here. I have to get them out.” Monica started to pull one of the hunks of metal strewn around the room off the table it had smashed and saw a piece of shattered glass. She pulled it away from the table and saw the screen it had originally been a part of, stopping to wonder where the hardware was. 

“Scott?”

“Yeah?”

“You said you went to college for electrical engineering?”

“Yep.”

“Can you come here? I need you to look at this.”

Monica paced while Scott looked at the table’s hardware and Jimmy held his phone flashlight up. 

“This thing’s busted to hell and back. If I had some tools, I could try to get the audio back, but even then, it would be patchy at best. And then there’s the problem of sending out the signal in the first place.” Scott stood up and carefully brushed the dust off his knees. “Add to it all that there’s no power source to even get it up and running.”

“That’s it, then. We’re done. We came all this way for nothing.”

Monica wanted to drop into the ground. After the last two days, she wanted the win. She wanted to be able to talk to somebody she knew, who hopefully gave a shit about her after all these years, who knew how to handle superheroes gone rogue because she clearly didn’t have a clue. She _needed_ to talk to Carol, if for no other reason than hear her voice. 

“Monica, come on. We need to get Scott and Cassie home, and then we need to regroup.”

“No. You can go. I’ll stay and figure this out.”

“It’s late, and we haven’t slept well the past few days. Let’s go.”

“No. I’m going to make this thing work if it’s the last thing I do.” Scott and Jimmy both got out of her way as she walked towards the table and sat down. The thing was almost buzzing, like there was some energy still inside it. She flipped one of the switches. Nothing. She pushed a few of the buttons. Still nothing. Monica shut her eyes, listened to the buzzing, and smacked the largest button at the center of the table. For a brief moment, she felt as though she’d been shocked, and then the center button lit up.

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

“I mean, I guess I should have tried hitting it first,” Scott said, mouth agape. 

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” Monica hit the center button again, and on the shattered screen, a series of names began to list off. Monica looked at the different buttons and keys in front of her and found a set of arrows. She tapped up, and the list moved up. “We’re in business.”

It took a minute or two, but she finally found a contact for Carol. She pressed the center button again, and waited. Monica could hear the machine sending out its signal, feel the vibrations in the metal. The buzzing was louder now.

“Do either of you hear that?” she asked as they waited.

“Hear what?” Jimmy asked.

That was odd. “Nothing, I just thought I heard a bird or something.”

“Oh, there are definitely birds in there. One of them tried to eat my ant.”

“Your ant?” Monica asked. 

“Yeah. He’s got ants. Uses them to get around and stuff,” Jimmy said casually, like this was a completely normal thing to him. “However bad you think ants are at their normal size, they are way, _way_ worse when they’re bigger.”

“That’s not true! Ants aren’t bad at all, they’re helpful.”

“To you, maybe.”

“Guys!” Monica snapped her fingers at the two and they fell quiet as static began playing poorly through the broken speakers. “Hello?”

“Who is this?” a voice asked back, and Monica was ready to cry. 

“Carol? It’s me, it’s Monica.”

“Monica? Oh, my God, it’s so good to hear your voice! Where are you, where’s your mom? How is she?”

And here came the hard part. “Did she not tell you? After the surgery?”

“Tell me what? What do you mean? She said everything went well.”

“You talked to her?”

“Of course I did, we talked all the time before. And then when she stopped, I thought. Well, I thought the same thing happened to her that happened to you.”

“No, Carol. My mom, she—her cancer came back. She’s been dead for three years.”

There was silence on the other end for a minute or two, and Monica had to fight back her own tears before she could worry about Carol’s.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there,” Carol said finally, and her voice sounded thicker. “Monica, I am so, so sorry.”

“I don’t think there was anything you could have done to stop it.” _But showing up when you were supposed to wouldn't have hurt._

“No, I could have been there. I could have been better. She deserved it, and so do you.”

Monica didn’t know what to say to that, so she cleared her throat and thought for a second. No shit, she deserved better from Carol. 

“There is something you can do, actually.”

“What is it? I’m already on my way.”

“Do you know Wanda Maximoff?”

“Redhead, magic, almost killed that purple bastard?”

Monica snorted. “That’s the one. She’s caused a problem down in New Jersey, and you’re the only person I could think of that would be able to stop her.”

“Say no more. Where are you now?”

“The Avengers’ compound.”

“I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

“Sounds good.”

“Monica?”

“Yeah?”

“I really am sorry.”

“Me, too.”

The signal disconnected. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading! this is easily the fastest i've ever written something in my life, and seeing all your comments made me so happy, i can't even explain it. thank you for coming on this weird little trip with me while we wait in agony for episode seven! i will definitely try to write more for this show because there are still so many ideas in my head, so stay tuned!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i love monica, jimmy, and darcy so much, and i've been trying to write something for this show for a week now. there might be a second chapter depending on how busy i am this week before the next episode laughs in my face with another crazy twist. this is super unbeta'd but i just wanted to post it so if you see any typos/mistakes no you don't :) title is from can i call you tonight? by dayglow.


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